Abstract

The latent heat flux (LE) between the terrestrial biosphere and atmosphere is a major driver of the globalhydrological cycle. In this study, we evaluated LE simulations by 45 general circulation models (GCMs)in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 5 (CMIP5) by a comparison with eddy covariance (EC) observations from 240 globally distributed sites from 2000 to 2009. In addition, we improved globalterrestrial LE estimates for different land cover types by synthesis of seven best CMIP5 models and EC observations based on a Bayesian model averaging (BMA) method. The comparison results showed sub-stantial differences in monthly LE among all GCMs. The model CESM1-CAM5 has the best performance withthe highest predictive skill and a Taylor skill score (S) from 0.51–0.75 for different land cover types. Thecross-validation results illustrate that the BMA method has improved the accuracy of the CMIP5 GCM’sLE simulation with a decrease in the averaged root-mean-square error (RMSE) by more than 3 W/m2when compared to the simple model averaging (SMA) method and individual GCMs. We found an increas-ing trend in the BMA-based global terrestrial LE (slope of 0.018 W/m2yr−1, p < 0.05) during the period 1970–2005. This variation may be attributed directly to the inter-annual variations in air temperature (Ta), surface incident solar radiation (Rs) and precipitation (P). However, our study highlights a largedifference from previous studies in a continuous increasing trend after 1998, which may be caused by the combined effects of the variations of Rs, Ta, and P on LE for different models on these time scales. This study provides corrected-modeling evidence for an accelerated global water cycle with climate change.

Requesting Publications

You can order print copies of our publications through our publication ordering system. Make a note of the publication you wish to request, and visit our Publication Order Site.

Publication Notes

This article was written and prepared by U.S. Government employees on official time, and is therefore in the public domain.

Our on-line publications are scanned and captured using Adobe Acrobat. During the capture process some typographical errors may occur. Please contact the SRS webmaster if you notice any errors which make this publication unuseable.

Cite This Article

About the Station

The Southern Research Station is one of seven units that make up the U.S. Forest Service Research and Development organization – the most extensive natural resources research organization in the world.